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Archive Twenty-seven
Watching black on white grow to flesh and blood ...
Audition
callbacks happened and were fun, but somewhat exhausting. We
went through a fair amount of actors in a short period of time.
Many of them we knew wouldn't work on the first reading, and
dismissed them pretty quickly. Those that had some promise, I gave
them adjustments to see if they could take direction. I'd
say about half of them pretty decent with the adjustments, but
less than a handful nailed it. No surprise though, as this
is a tough venue for an actor walk into, most not knowing the
overall context of the story. Susan of course handled most
of the details and ran the auditions, and I only stepped in when
it was necessary. It helped me appraise their situation
better. I have to say I felt for them, as that is a rough
path to tread, but that's part of being an actor I guess.
Can't tell you yet, but some exciting possibilities have just
opened up in our casting situation ...
On another
front we just got word on the housing development going in right
next to our main location. Looks like they'll start logging
fairly soon and be doing that until the end of May. Then
they start right in on clearing the whole area to put in the lots.
They said they'd be done in August. Oh boy. That may
crimp our style, as mostly we're concerned about sound levels.
Well, we've officially set our production date back a month.
Official prep starts July 9 and production starts on July 23.
We'll stay on top of this and see what happens, but we have some
strategies worked out in advance ...
As we do
have some unique sound design challenges we're officially bringing
aboard a sound designer this week. David Sonnenschein, who
wrote a very good book, appropriately named
Sound
Design, will start creating a sound map for the film.
Very cool! ...
As far as
DP's, I'll be doing second interviews with my three finalists
soon. So, we should have a decision on that soon ...
Jerry
Comments --
JSF releases Volume 7 -- 5/1
The Journal of
Short Film released
Volume 7 (Spring 2007)
today. The JSF is a quarterly DVD publication of exceptional,
peer-reviewed short films. To date, the JSF has published 70
filmmakers from 8 countries.
Volume 7 opens with a
thoughtful and entertaining documentary about Hurricane Katrina
and the impact of religion on the American South. Several strong
narrative films, two of which are Spanish, take us from medieval
France to an abandoned bombing range. Love stories sit next to
revenge stories, with comedies nearby. Several experimental films
and hand-made animations complete the collection.
The Journal continues to have a free and open submissions process.
Submissions should be sent to: The JSF, PO Box 8217, Columbus, OH
43201, USA. The Journal also remains ad-free, committed to
independent and underrepresented work, and insistent that art and
entertainment are not mutually exclusive
www.thejsf.org
Comments --
Let you know about www.TheReel.TV -- 5/3
How are you? I was just enjoying your blog in my journey through
the film web. It's cool to read about your endeavors. How does a
married man have time and money to put it all on the line for indy
filmmaking? Neither here nor there, but props to you. I look
forward to reading more.
I want to share with you a website that I've been building with
some friends and fellow filmmakers. You can find it at
www.thereel.tv. Our site was developed as a platform for
independent film makers like you. It enables you to network
with other filmmakers in your area, manage your production and
portfolio online, view other actors'/filmmakers' portfolios, and
broadcast your finished productions to all of our viewers.
Best part, everything is free. We'd love for you to check it
out. If you like the site, give us a shout out on your site. If
you have ideas to improve it, always feel free to send them my
way. We're constantly developing new features.
Good luck!
Brandon
May 15, 2007 -
Deep Waters
The calm before the storm ...
A little
bit of a lull right now as more forces seem to be gathering before
we make the push towards production ...
I'm
currently out of town pulling together more funds to get us all
the way through post. Eventually, I'll spill my guts about
how we got the funds to pull this all off, but for now a couple of
our silent partners want to stay that way. They realize how
risky film investment is, and being the absolutely savvy investors
they are, they don't want their investment buddies to think
they've totally lost it. Of course, once we're off to the
races and wildly successful, I'm fairly sure they'll pat us all on
the back and want to say how smart they were being with us all
along. No problem ...
Also,
we're currently involved in some cast negotiations that I can't
really talk about. Once we know how that ends up, it will be
made public. Or not, depending on how it goes. Clear
as mud, huh? ...
And
finally, I've been working on a small script polish. During
my last couple major drafts I realized that one of the major
characters had suffered quite a bit. Meaning the amount of
pages (and thus screen time) had greatly been reduced. I've
had a bit of queasy feeling about it, and wasn't sure what I
should do about it. Mainly because other than that I felt
the later drafts were substantially better. But after having
it pointed out to me more than once that the Marcus character was
lacking in certain ways, I finally decided to fix it. I feel
I've fixed that problem about 90%, and may just have a couple more
tidbits to tidy up and we'll pretty much be home free. I
think. We'll see ...
I have a
feeling things are going to pick up next week, so I'm hanging on
for the ride ...
Jerry
May 23, 2007 -
Casting News
And the star finally rises, and gives birth to ...
Well, we
finally pulled the trigger on our lead actress. No, we
didn't shoot her, we signed her up to help get this little baby
off the ground. For those of you who've already seen the
news on the website, no big surprise. But to you others, ta
da,
Erin Gray
has agreed to play the lead character in our little project on the
mountain. As most of you probably know she's done lots of
television and was a big time model, but she's also just come off
back to back low budget indie projects. So, it appears she
might get a fair amount of exposure the next year or so.
She nailed the audition and then I had a long lunch with her.
A very pleasant, smart (and of course attractive) woman, and seems
the part really resonated with her, so the deal got done.
Should be exciting and challenging, the only way to go ...
As far as
other casting news, we have various situations in the mix and will
fill you in later. The plan is to cast the eight principals
out of L.A. and the others up north, very possibly in the Ashland,
OR area, which of course is known for its Shakespeare festival ...
Also, I
wanted to put a notice out to the world about a special person
we're looking for. Let me back step and preface a bit.
A week or so ago I had a phone conversation with
Peter Broderick of
Paradigm Consulting, and he verified what I had been thinking but
wasn't totally sure of`-- that I need a viral online web presence.
A type of Marketing Coordinator, or Outreach Coordinator as he
called, someone who can build an online awareness of our project
and really grow it into a fully, all-encompassing, totally
saturated virus. Sheesh, sounds like something I wouldn't
want to catch. But anyway, you get the gist of it. Any
of you people out there? Something similar to what Lance
Weiler did recently, check his article in
Filmmaker Magazine and his
Workbook Project.
Also, you've got to read Scott Kirsner's book,
The Future of Web Video.
I've just started it, but can tell there's lots of intriguing info
here (yeah, like I've got lots of time to read right now, huh?).
So anyway, would that magic, special person please step forward
and contact me? You future awaits you ...
One last
tidbit. Did any of you see the first installment of
On The Lot this week (the
next episode airs Thursday). Oh my, I hate to be the
skeptic, but are these people really the future of cinema? I
really hope these people do much better as time progresses.
Or is Fox just hyping up the drama into another reality soap
opera? How uninspiring, if so. Guess time will tell
...
Jerry
May 31, 2007 -
End of Month Quick Hits
Plenty to go around, and even more ...
It's
starting to get where I can't tell whether I'm coming or going.
Lots of stuff in the works, and it feels like it's all going to
break soon ...
Looks like
we've got half of our principal cast lined up, and about to finish
up the rest. Hopefully next time we can announce who all
these people are, but deals are still being signed and a couple
are in the final laps of negotiation ...
I thought
I'd have my DP lined up by now, but it's gotten more complicated
and I've decided to mix that up some. More on that later too
...
Been
continuing my directorial breakdown of the script, and am a
bit snagged there, but am confident it will all come out in the
wash ...
Also been
working on the sound map for the film, and making even less
headway, but my confidence level is still high there too ...
And even
more, I'm sorting out some production design ideas ...
Out of
about 200 sample composer CD's, I've narrowed them down to ten
really good ones, and am getting DVD's of features they've scored.
We have two musical tunes to perform in the film and a song one of
the characters sings at the end. So, we need that written
before we go into production ...
Anyway,
all this multi-tasking hasn't gotten to me yet, but I do feel a
little beat right now. I just need a good night's snooze and
I'll be right at it again tomorrow, cranking away and turning the
wheels ...
Jerry
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